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Thursday, October 4, 2012

Make Good Art

Yesterday was a bit of a blurry mess due to a morning headache that I suspect might have reached migraine strength. I can only guess because up until about a year ago I had never had the pleasure of one of these extra strength headaches that come with extra prizes. This time the headache came with the free gift of light and sound sensitivity and apparently turned me into a monster as well because I lost all patience with the kids during school. Not my finest hour, but we carry on.

I didn't have any tatting tasks in queue, but something sent me looking through my old feedback on etsy and I kept running across pieces I stopped selling some time ago. I assume I stopped because I was sick of remaking those particular pieces, but I thought I might resurrect a couple of them. So I went to work on a choker I used to make. Of course since then my tension has improved dramatically making that particular piece tat up smaller so I had to do some fiddling to make it the proper length again and so it looks too different from the original pictures to list it from them. This means that I'll need to take new listing pictures before I can get it listed. At least it's something that needs doing and sice my headache appears to have finally been exorcised I'll try to get on that today.

On another note, I received an email this morning from one of my blog readers and gist of it was, when asking for a pattern they mentioned that they were a needle tatter and would the pattern work for the needle. The reason I mention this is the response received along with the pattern. She was informed that 'needle tatting is NOT tatting, go online and learn to tat'. Now I have a pretty good idea who said this without even asking, but who doesn't really matter. I just wanted to, yet again, go on record to say and I quote, "The knot does not care how it is made". When we needle tat we distinguish it with that word there, 'needle'. We do not diminish the work of shuttle tatters by tatting using a different method, we're not trying to pass off our work as some elaborate forgery to dupe people and I think that the result of the work speaks for itself. Of course don't get me started on all that 'embroidery tatting'. If you're going to draw a line in the sand I suggest it there. I'm getting away from the point though. That person was rude, insensitive and I'm pretty sure has broken the spirit of a number of needle tatters with that harshness. If you want to steer people to the shuttle, then invite them to learn don't try to shame them into it. Of course the best revenge is living well and creating good art. So to steal another quote, get thee to a needle or shuttle and "make good art".

3 comments:

Oh dear, what a ridiculous thing to say. Why would anyone be so rude to a request that so obviously was in admiration of something? I will dare to speak on behalf of reasonable people around the world and apologize for the rudeness of this person.-a shuttle tatter who stands in awe of tatters everywhere no matter how they make the knots

I think needle tatting is fabulous. I basically taught myself almost 2 winters ago because I wanted to be able to make my own lace. I've really had a lot of fun with it.

I like what you said in other posts about how the design continues to change; how your own tatting has changed over time so that when you remake an old piece it now looks like a new design; and how as you are working you see how you need to shape things differently and how you are also seeing new design ideas as you go. This is my experience, too!

As far as shuttle tatting being better than needle tatting, will that is just plain snobbery in my book. I tried shuttle tatting and it was so confusing I almost gave up trying to tat at all. I'm so glad needle tatting exists and I think it's a good example of how people see and do things differently, how we all approach things from a unique angle. Plus, you are the most accomplished tatter I've ever seen and I find a lot of inspiration in your work. Here's to making good art!